Working Life

As most of you know, I do a lot of thinking about the workplace and how we all participate. I think a dream job isn't always what we think it is--we don't think in terms of WHOLE lives when we think of work. We think in terms of money, convenience, titles, or industry, but never about what kind of people we are, what our actual NEEDS are, and what kind of lives we actually want to live. I think this is what gets people into trouble as far as stagnancy, anger and boredom. We think if only I could work from home or quit cold turkey then all my problems would be solved! But work isn't the problem, ignoring the whole of who we are is. Acknowledging who we are doesn't necessarily mean quitting the administrative job to work in a gallery (although it could)--it means asking yourself, who am I? How do I spend my time? What are my basic needs from financial to the personal?


I've spoken before about how I would go from one extreme to the other with my relationship to jobs--working angrily full-time and then quitting cold turkey only to run back to a job a month or two later. (Lather, rinse, and repeat.) Living this way kept me blind to a number of things including that I was actually good at my job, and what ways having a job worked for me. Structure, schedule, the basics paid (so I am not freaked out on survival), health benefits, and people all make my life good. So does having time to do art, writing, and music. So does wearing jeans and dresses. So I found a job that could provide all that. I work part time at a place that literally provides for me--time to do my work, the basics, social life, benefits for both me and my man, and I can wear what I want. No more office clothes! All for 18-20 hours a week!


I read this fantastic interview today (from AMS) that spoke to this issue so clearly. I love this woman's attitude--she knows who she is and she works for a company who accepts this. As I read it I thought, THIS MAKES PERFECT SENSE. Not many companies are as accepting as Microsoft, which seems to me a TOTAL BACK ASSWARDS way of employing. I mean, how many employers can say that when their employees go home they say "Where I work is AWESOME"? Still, you can't wait for the workplace to create that atmosphere for you--you have to know what you want so you can create it and find it for yourself. It's out there, folks. I promise you.

Among the Negatives

I got a new scanner this week and it has a nifty and exciting feature where you can scan slides and negatives. As it happens I had some old negatives that I had scavenged from my grandparents collection years ago, when I was in charge of organizing the family photos to distributing them. Having the option to actually see these images as full fledged color photos for the first time is like going on an excavation of the most personal and exciting nature. Among the mysterious old negatives were pictures of my parents that I'd never seen. For you, this may not seem like a big deal, but for me, who NEVER knew her parents together and who has seen only ONE image as proof that they were ever a couple (besides the obvious example of my own existence) this is INCREDIBLE. It's half spooky, half thrilling to find them squinting and laughing together on a boat in 1970.

Also among the negatives are pictures from the commune my family lived on. The fact that my mother's parents actually visited this ramshackle establishment in the fall of 1974 is amazing to me. Since the pictures depict many of the residents, I am imagining my grandmother in her groovy plaid pants and hush puppies among this shaggy dog group, snapping pictures, and trying to make sense of it all.

Some beautiful, quiet gems have emerged as well, like the one picture above. It's me holding my newborn brother Blake moments after he was born at home. I just love it. I have no idea who took it, but it's so beautiful it made me tear up the first time I saw it.

Then there are REALLY cool things like these photo booth pictures of my grandmother and her sisters in Kansas City in the 1930's:


Jeanne

Monica

Eileen



I feel like I've unearthed some lost trail of bread crumbs that were laid out years ago and forgotten about. I keep following them and what I find are surprising new views of the most ordinary of events. It takes everything I have to pull myself away and be able to go to bed at night. How could I sleep when there's a negative of a lost snapshot of my grandmother on her honeymoon in Seattle that my grandfather took? Who can sleep when your life emerges at you in such sparkling, pretty clarity?

Just Another Exciting Night In Brooklyn

Love is a Mixed Tape

I got rid of a lot of my tapes, but I can't seem to get rid of the collection of mixed tapes that I've amassed since 1991. My best friend in college was the QUEEN of delaying schoolwork by crafting. She showed me not only how to make colorful stickers out of packing tape, magic markers, and binder paper, but she also introduced the beauty of the mixed tape. Soon, I was making "To Study" tapes--tapes that would apparently help me study. Sometimes I made tapes just for Wednesdays, or to mark the end of the semester.

Nearly every boyfriend I had since 1991 got a mixed tape. A number of long distance friends too. My parents even suffered a few. I had a system down: 22-24 songs fit on a 90 minute tape (depending on the song length); I had to start both sides with a ROCKER, a call to arms, and end with a sort of quiet, thoughtful note. They were like letters that I wanted to fill the recipients with. I tried to woo boys I liked with tapes. I tried to keep my friends near. In a way, I captured my own life with these collections.

I look at them now and they do feel like their own diary. The ones I made for myself chronicle the arc of my musical taste and thus the arc of my personal development. The earlier ones are filled with a mishamash of what was popular at the time, and music I collected from the hallways of 1990's dorm life--Indigo Girls, The Sundays, Paul Simon, etc. I look at disbelief at one and see a MARIAH CAREY song listed (for PETE's SAKE!), followed by a Lenny Kravitz song (from a CD I sold SO LONG ago). It makes me QUAKE in my shoes to see such relics! Then I see how everything changed when I learned to play guitar and wanted to be a Riot Grrrrl--then it's girl rock all the time, baby! Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Liz Phair, Hole, etc. etc. It goes on like that.

It seems appropriate that the last mixed tape I made was for my husband. This is when we were "just friends", which meant that I was his friend, but I seriously had it BAD for him (which is the PERFECT climate to make an epic mixed tape). I spent TWO DAYS on it, culling and rethinking and wondering what this song would tell him and what this song would do for him. We had already had the "do you like me" talk, but it wasn't going to happen. He was moving to New York in a week and that would be that, and I was heartbroken and happy at the same time. The tape was an old letter I was writing to him. It said, Take me with you.

And as it happens, he did.

A Day at Headquarters

This weekend was good. I went ice skating in Central Park with an old friend and some new friends on Saturday night. I say "ice skating," but what I really mean is GRIPPING to the EDGE OF THE WALL with all my might. It didn't matter, it was SO FUN, and Central Park is magic. Then, on the way home, Vitali took Graham and I to see the view on the top floor of the Mandarin Hotel, which was BREATHTAKING. Then, on the way out of the lobby we saw Chevy Chase. It was like seeing a six foot four white haired version of so MANY childhood summer movie experiences. Chevy Chase! I salute you!

We finished The Office (dang!). The good news is we have Six Feet Under coming (Thanks, AMS!). Let the good times continue!

I also finished an amazing book, that I still don't quite have the words for. Afterwards I sat holding it in my hands, not able to quite let go. Then I realized, I didn't have to. So I sat with it for awhile, thinking about the amazing woman who wrote it, and all that she was brave enough to tell us in this book. It's a good day when you can sit and finish such a book and then have the time to sit with it. I can't remember the last time I did that.

Today I'm having a good time. It's good because I am getting work done and I am actually happy about it. It's good because I've been simultaneously uploading music to my itunes (why is this SO SATISFYING?). It's good because I'm going to make soup later. It's one of those days where I realize it doesn't take much to make me happy. If that isn't grace, I don't know what is.

Let it Rainn

Schrute, as he was meant to be captured: made from 100% office supplies.

Graham and I go through phases of entertainment. If he and I like something, we want to see it all. When it makes us LAUGH, we want to consume it with a fervor that borders on impassioned obsession. Past flavors have included Margaret Cho, Freaks N' Geeks, Project Runway, and many others.

We are currently totally engrossed in the American version of The Office. I decided to rent the first season after I heard an in interview with Steve Carell, and became so SMITTEN with his modest, funny, sweet self. (I mean, who doesn't love a man who has a tradition of leaving every Hollywood event he attends with his wife to go to an In-n-Out burger for a burger and a shake?) After the first season, we rented the second season, and now we are on the third. I have to admit that while I came for Carell, what made me stay was Rainn Wilson, who plays the over the top paper warrior, Dwight Schrute. The man KILLS me. He is so FRICKN' FUNNY, I can't take it. He's a 6 foot three man child.

Naturally, anything that gets me like that, I get a little obsessed with. So I've discovered that Wilson keeps a blog as his character. Dwight Schrute is the perfect blog personality: opinionated, over the top, and deeply entertaining.

Not every episode of The Office is perfect, (in fact Carell's character can DRIVE ME to palpitations) but when it hits it, it HITS it. We're coming to the end soon and that will be that until the next season comes out on DVD, but man, what a great ride.

Your Life Story. In Six Words.

Finally! My life story will be published! Maybe they'll turn it into a movie! Maybe I'll get to choose the actors! Maybe it will have a crazy soundtrack! Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself! But the life story being published is true.

My six word memoir will be featured in the book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure edited by SMITH Mag's Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser. I'm very excited to be included in this book. It also just happens to have memoirs from cool people like Amy Sedaris, Joyce Carol Oates, and Johnathan Lethem in it too.

I highly recommend writing your life story in six words. We all believe our story is interesting, but how many of us really sit down to write the BIG and TRUE memoir? That just takes SO MUCH TIME. Why wait, when you can do it in six words? It took me five minutes and look at the GLORY!

Buy the book! Feel the glory!

Real Life

This is one of my favorite quotes and I really need it tonight as I struggle with some old crap from new messengers.

It's so easy for me to get snagged up in this idea that my "real life" is out there and will arrive as soon as I've accomplished x y or z. The truth is that my real life is the life I spend waiting for my real life to begin. My real life is the yearning for what I perceive will be my real life. My real life is the struggle to get to what I think is my real life. My real life is the work I do so I can make the most of my real life. My real life is this and only this.

So I face the story of my real life--the one I am actually living--and this is what I find again and again. If I learn nothing else in this world, let it be to embrace the fickle nature of my mind. I can't be too far gone if I can at least do this.

(and screw it if I can't)

I Got Life

My friend Vitali sent me this awhile ago. Today it is my theme song. You gotta love The Nina, The Simone.

Changes

The Screw It year continues. So far, this is the most appropriate theme I've ever tried. I just sent what I consider a HORRIBLE short story to my writing group members. I was panicking and trying to figure out what else to send them, and then I remembered....SCREW IT, young lady! Send it on. Oh, what a relief!

It's definitely a time for change. I have made a decision to not make the Great Gals Calendars anymore. After 6 years it has more than served its purpose and the thought of letting it go was scary at first, but then when I applied the SCREW IT method, I felt an immense wave of relief.

And then there's the blog...

Here's what has been on my mind for the last few months: the changing face of blogging, and/or the question why in the heck do I do it?

Here's the thing about blogging that people seem to know, but not everyone quite GETS: The reality of blogs is that it's a very particular image of someone--a crafted image, with pictures and words. It's so ATTRACTIVE! I like to think of it as the porthole that showed up in the opening credits for The Love Boat: Guest Starring...CHARO! It's easy to make a clean picture in the porthole--but what you don't see is the cables and the tape on the floor, and the people yelling, and the catering service, and the guys with tight shorts and handlebar mustaches that supervise the lights and talk about the female guest stars' pantylines. We all are our own special guest stars on our blogs. We are also the leering light guys, but NOBODY sees this. If we do show it, it's a televised version.

There is so much I've gotten out of blogging: good vibes, great people to connect with, an audience to try things out on, an opportunity to write regularly, and witness my own life, publishing opportunities, and some real friendships. I've also gotten bad vibes, unwanted focus and attention, and public criticism. I tell you, it's all great until you get that first anonymous comment that tells you you are a piece of shit and your family members should be killed in a public forum (totally not kidding). Then, well, it kind of wakes you up to more of the broad scope of things. It isn't just people going "You go, girl!" It's also the chuckleheads who say things to a computer screen they would never in a million years dream of saying to someone's face, who take things personally, who think it is their job to tell you JUST WHAT IS WHAT. Nothing says FIRING SQUAD like anonymity and the internet.

When I first started catching on, the personal/creative blogging world seemed to bloom with originality and emerging voices. It was the new frontier! Rumi quotes abounded! People shared their artwork and their stories for the first time! Personalities were born! A new photographic aesthetic emerged: giant Gerber daisies in sky after sparkling sky, coffee cups with feathered foam, and the dainty shots of even daintier shoes! Minimalism took on new meaning--an apple and a thrifted bowl on a plain white table meant serenity! It was all so new and delicious! And I was there! In it! Quoting! Learning!

It still is filled with these elements, but it's been done time and time again. It's not a new frontier anymore-- and I'm bored. I'm bored with myself, with the "lessons" I found in my own blogging, and with the voice of it. Also, I used to want to share everything, but now I like my privacy. I am also doing more and don't have much time to talk about it.

I think I am in transition, and I don't think I am the only one. I know people who are consciously shifting their subject matter, to make it both new to them and to cater to a change in readership. Some bloggers I know are taking longer and longer between entries to post. Two of my favorite bloggers quit cold turkey. I salute them and miss them and envy them. I also wish I knew what their experience was AFTER they quit.

For my own interest, I've been trying to make things new again. Maybe you could tell. I've been trying to change the way I blog, faltering a few times into old habits (this blog entry will be exhibit A), and feeling oddly embarrassed by it. I turned off comments and two interesting things happened: A few people had weird, hostile reactions to it. I got 1 supportive e-mail that I really appreciated. The other thing that happened is that I got lonely. As weird as that sounds--I realized it wasn't solely about having an audience, but about ME connecting with other people.

So, I'm not quitting--at least yet. There's things I still like about blogging--but I need to admit that my relationship to it is changing and I'll be trying new things here. There's blog entries to be drawn, scrabbled, showered, walked, written in dirt, if its a surface, I'll create a blog entry out of it. There's community I still want to experience and build. There's a world I'm still interested in. Thank you to those who have been with me on this ride, and I hope will continue to be.

Family Time

I think the Pacific Northwest may be the California I always wanted. Although I will always have a deep familial love for my Bay Area roots and the Oak trees and the golden hills and all that, I always wished it was more green and had some a wilder texture. I think that's why the second I could, I headed out East. I wanted seasons (or more than just two). I wanted greenery. The first thing I noticed about Vancouver Island when I went there 18 months ago was that it still had the QUALITY of air of California, the Pacific Ocean, the nice people, but it had a green, wild landscape that was BREATHTAKING. Oh, yeah and the Bald Eagles. There were Bald Eagles just AROUND.

My parental units Pam and Gary moved to Vancouver Island 3 years ago from the Santa Cruz Mountains. I thought I'd never love a home as much as the home they created in Santa Cruz mountains, so when they moved I felt I had lost my real sense of a family home. Like so many things I hold dear, I was blind to the gifts of things changing and how some things, the real deep down stuff, no matter what, stays the same. It was Pam and Gary that made me feel a sense of home, not the structure of their house. So now Vancouver Island feels weirdly homey to me. I love its beauty and I love the British influence of the culture. It's like California meets Europe, which is so enticing to me. Their postal carriers drive in the coolest little red vans that made me want to steal it and drive it across country. Then there are Nanaimo bars--the BEST dessert bar on the planet.

I hate that it's so far away and I sometimes have wild fantasies of moving to that area--if not the Island then at least the Pacific Northwest. Then again, I also have wild fantasies of moving lots of places like back to the Bay Area or Vermont. Still, the pull is great to be near the ones you love. At the same time, I also need to admit that there is lots about seeing people 24/7 that makes visiting a mixture of joy and exhaustion. I am someone who needs equal dosage of togetherness and aloneness or else I go a little batty. There were times I was so happy I could burst and other times I felt like a huffy, insane teenager. Such is the nature of FAMILY TIME.

Coming back was a bit tough at first--I always forget how there is this adjusting period to returning to the more solitary life that I lead and to the rhythm of REGULAR LIFE. Then, when it happens, there is also a sense of RELIEF. The New Year is such a hopeful time, and I feel very hopeful. There is a lot I want to do and creative and live in the next 12 months.

New Year Resolutions

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Happy NEW Year!

Well, I had a fabulous time in Canada. It was one of the most relaxing Christmas trips I've had in years. Usually, when I go home for Christmas, it's like I hit the ground running and I don't stop until I am literally sick from all the stress of trying to see everyone I can. This year I went to one house and one house only. Because it was raining and snowing nearly the whole time, the most traveling I did was from the bed to the couch to the refrigerator to the dining room to the couch again. Okay, I did get to walk in the woods one day. I also got to walk on the beach, but other than that I read, played board games, drew, ate, talked extensively, and ate some more.

It was so fabulous a time that up until this morning I was still sad about coming back. Actually, truth be told, I wasn't really BACK until this morning. I kind of felt ON HOLD. The pictures haven't come off the camera yet, I am not completely unpacked, etc. etc. I was going to hold off to write a blog entry complete with beautiful, artful pictures displaying the glory that is Vancouver Island and my family, but I decided what my motto is going to be for 2008:

SCREW IT. Screw it and do it anyway. Yep, this year, it's the SCREW IT year.

I marvel every year at the deep and powerful wishes and themes people come up with for the New Year. The blogosphere abounds with such glorious pronouncements and declarations. I'm always inspired by the idea of this, but I also know myself--I know how fickle and temperamental I am (emphasis on the MENTAL). I know I can soar into the air with a declaration like THIS IS THE YEAR THAT WILL MAKE MY DREAMS COME TRUE, but then it's Monday and I'm out of cat litter, or I just don't want to, or I ran out of red paint, or I'm late or whatever, and such ideas seem to sneak out the backdoor. So I am changing my tune. This is my SCREW IT year:

Screw it--write the friggn' blog entry WITHOUT the pictures.
Don't have the usual 20% for my savings account? SCREW IT--put $1.00 in my savings account.
Afraid I am going to let someone down by doing something late or different? SCREW IT and do the work anyway.
But what if this happens and what if that happens? SCREW IT!

There's a certain ring to it, don't you think?

More later, with pictures and everything.